Semi-Exhaustive Syllabi Collection

Last updated: 4th October, 2023

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Sections

1.Career Planning Resources
2. Cause-specific resources
3. Other curricula
4. Self-paced learning about EA

Thanks to Irene Hulsen for this!

1.Career Planning Resources

Career planning programs

Local group versions of this:

Career Planning Intensive (Yale EA)

EA Career Planning Intensive Kickoff (Victor Warlop)

Career planning program (EA at University of Chicago) (with added aptitude track)
Conference and Career program (EA at UW-Madison) (combines career planning with preparing for an EAGx conference)

80,000 Hours

Career planning and decision making — all our best resources
80,000 Hours career planning course
Shorter version of this: Career Workshop Form Shareable (Aaron Scher)
Workshop: High Impact Careers | Sudhanshu Kasewa | EAG DC 22
80,000 Hours careers workshop | Habiba Islam | EA Global: London 2021
Career Planning Workshop w/ Matt Reardon 80,000 Hours
[Shared] FAQs for group leaders about 80k advising (Habiba Islam)
Local group versions of this:

Career Planning Workbook (EA Oxford)
Collective ABZ Career Planning: slides from talk EAG reconnect, event planning, invitation email, slides from career workshop EA student summit, career planning template 80000hours, EA Oxford’s career planning workbook (Shorter version with a few questions to get people started) (Naomi Nederlof; EA Geneva)

Aptitudes approach (Holden Karnofsky)

My current impressions on career choice for longtermists - Holden Karnofsky
Career planning template (aptitudes approach) (Michael Byun, Stanford EA)
Building Aptitudes (Emma Abele)

Career-focused Introduction Fellowships

Career-focused intro fellowship curriculum and worksheet -> Fall Career Planning Template (Saad Siddiqui and Kevin Wei, Schwarzmann College)
S22 NYU Social Impact Career Fellowship Syllabus (EA at NYU)

Cambridge EA: Cambridge EA 2.0 Career-Planning Intensive Guide and [Template] Career Planning Intensive Workbook (Eve McCormick)

Previous version: Career Planning Intensive (Dewi Erwan)

Stanford EA

Draft of High Impact Careers Program (Kuhan)

Previous version of this: Stanford EA Brainstorm for High Impact Careers Program (New to EA)

Career planning template (aptitudes approach) (Michael Byun)

EA Philippines

Short Guide to the High Impact Career Accelerator Programme (HICAP) (Veerle Graafsma, EA Netherlands)
Career resources guides

Career and Opportunity Resource Guide (Midwest Effective Altruism)
EA UW–Madison Career and Opportunity Resource Guide
List of EA-aligned research training programs (Michael Aird)

2. Cause-specific resources

(presentations/fellowships/workshops)

Cause Area Groups Incubator for EAs in the Netherlands (Jelle Donders; EA Eindhoven) to find resources and connect to other people who might be interested
Cause-specific fellowships: reasons to organize cause-specific fellowships (Bella Forristal)

a. AI Safety

For more strategic thinking about AI safety field-building, check out [shared] EA Community Building Readings

Running an AIS group/AIS movement building

Stanford AI Alignment (SAIA)

Michael Chen

AI Safety Support (Big collection of resources)
Community-building for AI governance (Mauricio Baker)
AI Safety groups should imitate career development clubs (about ML @ Berkeley)

AI Safety Fundamentals (AISF; formerly AGISF) (run by BlueDot Impact; recommended/major AI curricula developer)

AI Alignment 101 (Richard Ngo)

AISF website with 2023 curriculum
ARCHIVED: 2022 Alignment Fundamentals curriculum
Summaries of 2022 readings
AISF Adaptation for in-person groups (Sam Marks)
AGI Safety Fundamentals - Facilitator’s Guide (Dewi Erwan)

AI Alignment 201 (Richard Ngo)

AI Governance (Mauricio Baker)

AISF website
[Public] 2022 AI Governance Curriculum
AI Governance Discussion Prompts & Exercises Brainstorming (from the original AISF syllabus; which doesn't quite match the current version)

AISF list of resources

AI Alignment 101 courses

AISF (see above)
EleutherAI Alignment 101 (also contains some slides) (Jon Tow)
STS 10SI: Intro to AI Alignment Syllabus [Public] (Stanford AI Alignment; Gabe Mukobi)
[shared] "Key Phenomena in AI Risk" - Reading Curriuclum + announcement post + (PIBBS)
CUEA Standard AI Safety Reading Group Syllabus and CUEA Project Based AI Safety Reading Group Syllabus (Columbia EA)
AISI@GT AI Safety Fundamentals Program Syllabus (Technical Track, Fall 2022); AI Safety Fundamentals curriculum (EA @ GT, Spring 2022) (EA at Georgia Tech)
Semester 1 Readings, Harvard AI Safety Team
S22 AI Safety Syllabus (EA at NYU)
Fa22 UMich AI Safety Fundamentals Fellowship (Jakub Kraus, UMichigan EA)
Introduction to AI Safety Workshops – Syllabus Spring 2021 (Oxford-Warwick)
Slide deck of a curriculum closely based on AISF (EA at UC Berkeley)

AI Alignment 201 courses

AISF (see above)
STS 20SI: Advanced AI Alignment Syllabus [Public] (Stanford EA)
AI Safety ANZ In-Depth Summer Program Guide (AI Aus & NZ)

AI Governance/Policy

AISF (see above)
AI Governance, Policy, and Strategy (GPS) Fellowship (MIT AI Alignment (MAIA) & Harvard AI Safety Team (HAIST))
Best overview of reading lists: Collection of AI governance reading lists, syllabi, etc. (Michael Aird)

Intro ML Safety

Intro to ML Safety Syllabus
Intro to ML Safety Facilitator Guide
Intro to ML Safety Syllabus [Previous Experience Track])
ML Safety Course (Dan Hendrycks; Center for AI Safety)
MLSS Preparation Materials and Curriculum [public] (Thomas Woodside) (Introducing the ML Safety Scholars Program)
Science of deep learning reading group (MIT)

Presentations

AI Safety talks (Youtube channel)
AGI Safety talks (AISF)
AGI Safety Fundamentals 2021 cohort launch
Jakub Kraus (Michigan EA)

AI safety videos (+ Forum post)
AI Safety Fa22 (based on Meeting 2: AI Safety from Thomas Larsen)
Risks from Advanced AI with Jakub Kraus and AI safety intro talk

The Hubinger lectures on AGI safety: an introductory lecture series (Evan Hubinger)
MAISI Talk (Thomas Larsen)
MHacks AI safety talk ( (based on Spreading messages to help with the most important century - Holden Karnofsky)
EA IIT M Presentation (Aditya Prasad)
Introduction to AI Safety (Mark Xu)
Risks from Highly-Capable AI (March 2023) and Risks from Highly-Capable AI (Vael Gates)

Previous version: AI Safety intro talk and [SAIA F22] HAI Slides, Vael Gates [public] (Vael Gates for SAIA)

Other projects for groups

Activities AI alignment groups can run that are useful for organizers (Aaron Scher)
Alignment research exercises (Richard Ngo)
Hackathon template (from Akash’s India AIS blitz)
Alignment Workshop Guide: Curriculum (Akash & Olivia)
Chilean AIS Hackathon Retrospective
List of technical AI safety exercises and projects (Jakub Kraus, UMichigan EA) ->What are some exercises and projects I can try?
Next steps after AGISF at UMich (Jakub Kraus, UMichigan EA) ->Next steps after AI Safety Fundamentals at UMich [public]
We Ran an Alignment Workshop (weekend workshop)
Alignment Jams: multi-day hackathons that can be run by local groups
The Treacherous Turn: “A research-supported TTRPG in which the players collectively scheme as a misaligned AI in the modern world” -> learn more about AI Safety
Universal Paperclips: game that is an illustration of the paperclip problem

Reading lists

List of AI safety newsletters and other resources
What are some introductions to AI safety? (Jakub Kraus, UMichigan EA)
Why care about AI? (Global Challenges Project (GCP) Library)
AI Safety Explainer (Daniel Eth)
AI safety technical courses, reading lists, and curriculums (Kat Woods) + Forum post
Collection of AI governance reading lists, syllabi, etc. (Michael Aird)
AI Governance-related Podcasts, Newsletters, Blogs, and more (Alex Lintz)
Technical AI Safety Reading List (EA Philadelphia)
AI Safety Syllabus (80,000 Hours)
Best introductory overviews of AGI safety?
Alignment Forum (Dedicated forum for AI Safety, similar to the EA forum)
Seeking input on a list of AI books for broader audience
How I failed to form views on AI safety (Ada-Maaria Hyvärinen)
Victoria Krakovna resources
AI Alignment Forum Sequences
CHAI recommended reading materials (Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence)
AI Safety Support "Lots of Links"
Inside Views Resources (Neel Nanda)
Resources I send to AI researchers about AI safety (Vael Gates)
AI alignment newsletter
Bibliography of all safety research
Awesome AI Alignment resources
Reading list for newcomers (Vishal Maini)
How to get technological knowledge on AI/ML (for non-tech people)

Other opportunities; not for groups (very incomplete)

AI Alignment Awards contests
AISafety.training: list of ongoing opportunities (+ announcement)
Announcing AI safety Mentors and Mentees
AI safety camp
AISafety.com Reading group (no structure)
Safety and Control for Artificial General Intelligence (actual AI Safety university course (UC Berkeley))

b. Alternative proteins

Alternative Protein Fundamentals (Blue Dot Impact)
The Alt Protein Project | GFI
GFI Alternative Protein Literature Library
Alt Proteins Seminar - Fall 2022 GT (EA at Georgia Tech)
How Engineers can Contribute to Alternative Proteins (High Impact Engineers)

c. Animal advocacy/(wild) animal welfare

Presentations

Animal Welfare Introductory Presentation.pptx (Vaidehi Agarwalla)
EA SG Animal Welfare Introductory Presentation (EA Singapore)
Effective altruism and animals - GT.pptx (Michael Che; EA at Georgia Tech)

Animal advocacy fellowships

EAA Syllabus (Published) and EAA Discussion Guide (EEA = effective animal advocacy) (EA UCLA)

This syllabus has a minimal expected background for participants.

Online Animal Advocacy Introduction Course (Animal Advocacy Careers)
8 Online Courses for Animal Advocates (compiled by Animal Advocacy Careers)

Wild animal welfare fellowships

Wild Animal Welfare (Global Challenges Project (GCP) Library)
Curriculum for Wild Animal Welfare Reading Group (Bella Forristal with input from staff at Wild Animal Initiative; EA Oxford) (+ extra resources)

Groups familiar with basic EA arguments for animal welfare could skip or shorten weeks 2 and 3. Facilitators don't need any prior experience in wild animal welfare.

EA Philippines’ Effective Animal Advocacy Fellowship - Syllabus Preview
Nonhuman animals week in CEA In-Depth Seminar

Career Guide for Ending Factory Farming (Jeffray Behr)
Invertebrate Fundamentals (Faunalytics)
Animal Welfare Library
List by Cameron King (Animal Advocacy Africa/Impactful Animal Advocacy Slack)

d. Biosecurity

Summer 2022 curriculum (outdated): [Commentable, Public] GCBRF Curriculum (Summer 2022)
[Final] Syllabus for SERI BITS (Announcing SERI BITS) (James Lin)
Reading lists

Cause Area Guide: Global Catastrophic Biological Risk [SHARED] (EA Norway)
Bakerlee biosecurity reading list [public] (Chris Bakerlee)
GCBR reading list (Gregory Lewis)
A Biosecurity and Biorisk Reading + List (Tessa Alexanian)
Learn WMD (learn about Weapons of Mass Destruction) (Jamie Withorne): Learn WMD- The Spreadsheet.xlsx (also has sections on biological warfare)
Next Generation Biosecurity: Responding to 21st Century Biorisks (online course by the University of Bath on FutureLearn) (+ summary)

Independent

How Can Engineers Do Impactful Work in Biosecurity? (High Impact Engineers)

e. Economics and Global Priorities Research (GPR)

For university courses related to EA and economics, check out this section of this doc.

Global priorities research for economists syllabus (David Rhys Bernard) (14 weeks)
Economics and Population Growth Reading List (Luis Mota Freitas)
“Topics in Economic Theory and Global Prioritization” ETGP - public materials+ Forum Post (longer GPR course taught by Phil Trammell)

f. Environmentalism

Stanford Effective Environmentalism Syllabus Fall 2020 (Keona Blanks)
CU Effective Environmentalism Syllabus (Fall 2022).docx (Columbia EA)
Effective Environmentalism Resources (website) and Effective Environmentalism Resources (Vaidehi Agarwalla)
Effective Climate Change Mitigation Cambridge Seminar Programme: ECCM Seminar Programme - Spring 22 (EA Cambridge)

g. Existential risks/longtermism

Presentations

Intro to existential risks presentation (10 min) (Kuhan, Stanford EA)
Good Futures Intro Talk: longtermism presentation (Max Gehred, UW Madison)

Existential risks programs

Existential Risks/GCRs Reading suggestions (Nandini Shiralkar)
Social Scienes & Existential Risk - Syllabus (Mauricio Baker)
Existential Risks Introductory Course: Curriculum (old); ERIC: Facilitator Guide to Running Sessions [LT 22]; Forum post

Longtermism programs

Longtermism program (EA Student Group Resources)
Longtermism virtual course plan [PUBLIC] (EA Munich) (Forum post)
S22 NYU Longtermism Program
A full syllabus on longtermism
Stafforini list of courses on longtermism

Reading lists

h. Forecasting

Fellowships

Forecasting: Predict the Odds of Future Events (fellowship by Juan Cambeiro and Michael Hewlett. Enrollment for the pilot round closes Mar 22, 2023)
Alternative curriculum #1: January 2021 Version (Oxford's alternative EA intro fellowship curriculum, which has a week dedicated to forecasting)

Forecasting training

Forecasting Self-Study Resources (author unknown)
Intro to Forecasting YouTube series (Alex Lawsen)
Quantified Intuitions
Calibration training from Clearer Thinking
Good Judgment Project training
16 types of useful predictions (Julia Galef)
How to make better predictions (Clearer Thinking)

Competitions

Metaculus tournaments
Autocast Competition: build a machine learning model that makes accurate and calibrated forecasts
Report on Running a Forecasting Tournament at an EA Retreat
Internal competitions

Confido (for running internal forecasting tournaments)
Flashcast
This thread on the EA Groups Slack

Manifold Markets
EA College Forecasting Tournament (INFER Public) (was run in 2022 for the last time when I checked on 20 Mar 2023)
EA Uni Group Forecasting Tournament (inter-uni group tournament run in 2020) (UChicago EA)
OPTIC [Forecasting Comp] — Pilot Postmortem

Workshops/games

Also see the ideas for “estimating important numbers” social events in this section of this doc.
The Estimation Game by Quantified Intuitions (off-the-shelf event for groups that is renewed monthly)

A slightly more outdated/worse UI/etc but still pretty good one is by Open Philanthropy

Introduction to Forecasting and X-risk Event Resources [shareable] and YETI Intro Forecasting Workshop (Yale Existential Threats Initiative)
Crash course in forecasting (Adam Kuzee)
Workshop: Forecasting | Austin Chen | EAG DC 22
Calibration training (Clearer Thinking; Spencer Greenberg)
Estimathon workshop (Jane Street)
Hamish Huggard

Wits and Wagers

Wits & Wagers
Wits & Wagers: An Engaging Game for Effective Altruists
Epistemic games (Adam Binks): list of other related boardgames
Google Form-based version of Wits and Wagers

i. Global health and development/Mental Health

For resources for people to work on their own personal development/mental health, see this section of this doc.

Global Health & Poverty and Global Poverty Reading Group - Reading Notes and Session Guide (EA Cambridge)
Mental Health Career Program (Noam Shwartz, EA Tel Aviv)
GiveWell top charities discussion meeting and GiveWell top charities info sheet (EA at Georgia Tech)
Reading lists

MENTAL HEALTH reading list (Catherine Low)
EA reading list: global development and mental health (Richard Ngo)

j. Moral philosophy

Many reading lists in EA Archives Reading List
S-risks/suffering-focused ethics SFE Fellowship Syllabus
Philosophy: Foundational-issues-in-effective-altruism
'Doing good better - moral philosophy and Effective Altruism' course syllabus.

k. Nuclear Security

EA Forum topic on Nuclear Security
Learn WMD (Jamie Withorne): Learn WMD- The Spreadsheet.xlsx
Reading Group Launch: Introduction to Nuclear Issues, March-April 2023 with a tentative reading list (Samuel Belon & Isabel Johnson)
New Nuclear Security Syllabus + Summer Course -> Nuclear-Weapons-Syllabus.pdf (Maya Deutschman)
Books / book reviews on nuclear risk, WMDs, great power war? (Michael Aird)

l. Rationality

Also see the “Questioning beliefs” section of this doc for some exercises.
Rationality practice regimes (with different exercises)

Hammertime (rationality practice)
Training Regime (Mark Xu)

Resolve cycles (Mark Xu)

CFAR handbook (contains many different activities)

Hamming circles

Bugs List & Hamming Questions (Anne Wisserman)
The Hamming Question (Raemon)
The Hamming Question (Mark Xu)
Hamming Question phrasings (Irene Hulsen, inspired by Jessica McCurdy)

4 workshops (Neel Nanda)
Retrospective on Teaching Rationality Workshops (Neel Nanda)
Resources for Rationality Groups/Meetups
Copy of Judgment Building Workshop (Matt Reardon; 80,000 Hours)
Take inspiration from this post and the style of “quick and dirty investigation of a question”
Calibration training (Clearer Thinking; Spencer Greenberg)

3. Other curricula

Things I don’t really know how to categorize.

China & Global Cooperation (EA Cambridge): EA/China GPC Intro Document (shared)
Global Priorities Research: Online GPR Reading Group (Robert Harling)
High Impact Medicine 8-week fellowship
Law/institutional decision-making/policy

Legal Topics in Effective Altruism (EA Virtual Programs) -> Spring 2023 - Legal Topics in EA Curriculum
Law x EA Intro Curriculum (EA McGill University)
Follow-up on "Institutions for Future Generations"
List of Masters Programs in Tech Policy, Public Policy and Security (Europe) by Sberg
US Policy Careers (various EA Forum posts)

4. Self-paced learning about EA

These are just some suggestions, but of course, this list is woefully incomplete

Best Intro to EA Resources (helpful resources for 1:1s and links to send people)

Introduction to Effective Altruism (Article)
80,000 Hours Key Ideas (Article)
Effective Altruism: An Introduction (Podcast)
Well-known Intro to EA videos

Reading material

A lot of the syllabi/curricula above can also be followed in a self-paced way
EA Forum posts (about all things effective altruism)

Topics: Wiki with terms

LessWrong posts (about rationality)
Guides and podcast by 80,000 Hours
Library of effective altruism (the most important EA books) by Anna Riedl
List of EA Slack workspaces
Suggestions for explainers for important concepts and places to read publications and form an inside view can be found in Resources For Beginning of the Year University Groups (skills-building/learning header)
List of reading lists (from the old EA Hub)
The lists of videos in the section on watch parties (under “socials”) in this doc.

Self-paced Introduction Fellowship equivalents

EA Handbook (self-paced Introduction Fellowship)
Peter Singer EA Course at Princeton on Coursera (12 hours)

Small projects (e.g., for group members to work on)

Per Ivar Friborg (EA NTNU)

How to Incubate Self-Driven Individuals (for Leaders and Community Builders) by Per Ivar Friborg
From Practical Projects to Self Development: A Shift in Focus by Per Ivar Friborg
Overview of Projects at EA NTNU

Sofya Lebedeva (EA Berkeley)

Projects database

Distillation Contest - Results and Recap (Aris Richardson, EA at UC Berkeley)
List of small EA-related projects (Diego Dorn, EA EPFL)
Project Ideas 0.95 (EA Utrecht)
Winter Break Ideas (resources for members to engage with EA independently over the winter break) (Columbia EA; Olivia Jimenez)